Angelina Catharina Valentijn, also Anjelina van Batavia, (c. 1768–1817) was born a
slave
Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to perf ...
in
Batavia,
Dutch East Indies
The Dutch East Indies, also known as the Netherlands East Indies ( nl, Nederlands(ch)-Indië; ), was a Dutch colony consisting of what is now Indonesia. It was formed from the nationalised trading posts of the Dutch East India Company, which ...
, who after she was freed, accumulated remarkable financial and territorial wealth through her marriages.
Life
The name and origin of her family and her parents' identity are unknown. However, baptized a
Catholic at the age of three, she was raised in the household of Margaretha Catharina van Wargaren, wife of
notary Wiggert Wargaren and probably her
godmother. As Margaretha Catharina van Wargaren provided her with a European upbringing, Angelina became accustomed to and introduced into the culture, manners and habits of the wealthy
bourgeoisie
The bourgeoisie ( , ) is a social class, equivalent to the middle or upper middle class. They are distinguished from, and traditionally contrasted with, the proletariat by their affluence, and their great cultural and financial capital. They ...
class of
Batavia, where she would also have made the acquaintances and personal contacts that led to her future marriages.
[
]
Marriages
She would eventually marry three European men, that she had met among the influential circles of government and business of Batavia. Her first marriage to a German lieutenant, named Johann Samuel Heinrich Wüstenberg (1765–1803), brought her into possession of the ''Tjitrap Estate'' on Bali
Bali () is a province of Indonesia and the westernmost of the Lesser Sunda Islands. East of Java and west of Lombok, the province includes the island of Bali and a few smaller neighbouring islands, notably Nusa Penida, Nusa Lembongan, and Nu ...
island and a share of another property in Soekaradja (southern Sumatra
Sumatra is one of the Sunda Islands of western Indonesia. It is the largest island that is fully within Indonesian territory, as well as the sixth-largest island in the world at 473,481 km2 (182,812 mi.2), not including adjacent i ...
), which her husband had acquired around 1800. Wüstenberg died in 1803.[
Her second marriage to Johannes Loetzrich took place a few months later in 1803. A third marriage at an unknown time and place to marine captain Adriaan Maarschalk from ]Zoutelande
Zoutelande (Zeelandic: ''Zóetelande'') is a village in the southwestern Netherlands. It is located in the municipality of Veere, Zeeland, between Dishoek and Westkapelle on the former island Walcheren. On 1 January 2005 it had 1,556 inhabitant ...
suggests that she also had survived her second husband. Angelina has experienced a phenomenal social increase in her life. From her origin as an orphan and slave she became owner of the colonial ''Estate at Tjitrap'' and at ''Sukkah Raja'', she amassed a vast financial fortune and was respected among the top colonial elite of early nineteenth-century Batavia. Upon her death in 1817 at Batavia, the ''Tjitrap Estate'' was sold for the sum of 91,000 guilders.[
]
See also
* Anna Jens
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Valentijn, Angelina
1760s births
1817 deaths
18th-century Dutch East Indies people
Slaves